News from around the world

A Las Vegas man accused of killing a 7-year-old girl in 1994 told a judge Wednesday morning that he is not guilty.

Gregory Wallen, a convicted sex offender, was ordered to be held without bail. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 1.

Wallen was arrested Monday in Pahrump, more than 15 years after the disappearance and slaying of Diana Hernandez. Her body was found in a trash bin near the Sandpiper Apartment complex at Flamingo Road and Maryland Parkway.

Detectives went through a list of registered sex offenders and matched Wallen’s name to the list of volunteers who helped search for Hernandez when she went missing. Police said Wallen’s DNA matched evidence found on the girl’s body.

Wallen had been accused of sexual assault in 1992, but had not been convicted and was not added to the registry until 1999.

A convicted sex offender has been charged with attempting to murder and rape a woman in Barre more than a year ago. Authorities say DNA evidence played a part in identifying the suspect in this vicious crime which is very similar to a sex crime that sent him to prison 16 years ago.

Police say they had little to go on after a 50-year-old woman was sexually assaulted and her throat slashed in her Barre apartment in March 2008.

The victim said the attacker was a slender African-American wearing a dark sweatshirt and hoodie but she had never seen him before.

But Wednesday, after 16 months of investigation, police say they have enough evidence to charge Ed McAdoo Johnson, 48, with the crime.

“At the time he was identified by people in the area, so he was a suspect from the beginning,” Washington County Prosecutor Tom Kelly said.

Police say Johnson was the victim’s neighbor and knew who she was through an ex-girlfriend. Police say the case got stronger when Johnson lied to them and others about his whereabouts at the time of the crime, tried to get others to provide an alibi for him, and was seen minutes before and after the crime near the apartment. Then when saliva samples on the victim produced DNA evidence– Johnson was charged.

“Evidence,” Kelly said. “Mitochondrial DNA. Three labs have examined two pieces of evidence and have not excluded Mr. Johnson.”

Police did not have to go far to arrest Johnson. He was already in prison facing charges that he exposed himself in public several times.

It’s all part of a 30-page crime record that could bring Johnson a life sentence as an habitual offender if he is convicted of the new charges.

Johnson was ordered held on $200,000 bail on all the pending charges.

Johnson’s record shows that when the woman was attacked in Barre he had been out of prison only eight months after serving 13 years for kidnapping a woman he had never met off a street in Montpelier and holding a knife to her throat during an attempted sexual assault. If he goes to trial on these new charges it is possible prosecutors would be permitted to tell the jury about that case because it is so similar to the new one.

A convicted Megan’s Law offender is accused of dragging a teen into the woods and trying to rape her at knifepoint.

David Helsel, of Altoona, was arrested after a short manhunt Tuesday night and is facing numerous charges, including indecent assault.

Helsel was convicted previously of rape and is listed on the Megan’s Law Web site as a sex offender.

Altoona police said Helsel approached a group of juveniles — two girls and three boys — at the Oakridge Cemetery on 10th Street. Helsel claimed he worked at the cemetery and blamed the group for knocking over tombstones. When the juveniles tried to walk away, Helsel punched one of the boys in the face, police said.

Soon after, police said Helsel allegedly grabbed the two girls and forced them to enter a wooded area about a block away. There, Helsel pulled out a knife and assaulted both teens before one managed to escape, police said.

The girl called police, who arrived moments later to find Helsel standing over the other girl, who was partially nude.

Helsel fled the scene but officers caught him after a chase, police said. He remains at the Blair County Prison on $500,000 bond.

The girl was taken to Altoona Regional Hospital, where she was examined and released.

Anthony Curran, 28, who was convicted of rape in 2002, is alleged to have sneaked into a house at night through the unlocked front door and raped a 32-year-old woman after getting into her bed as she slept.

And in a second attack he raped a woman aged 31 on waste ground after offering to walk her home from a seafront nightclub in the early hours of the morning, Newcastle Crown Court was told yesterday. Curran, of Ridley Avenue, Wallsend, denies two counts of rape – the first on December 9, 2007 in Cullercoats and the second on August 3 last year in Whitley Bay, both North Tyneside.

He said he had never been to the house where the first attack took place but has given no explanation for two hairs found in the victim’s bed which matched his DNA profile. He maintains the second woman consented to sex.

Prosecutor Penny Moreland told the jury Curran was a sexual predator who had targeted and taken advantage of two vulnerable women.

“His offending you may think is not about an overwhelming sexual urge because at the time of both these offences he had a girlfriend with whom he had sexual relations,” she said .

“You may think it is about the exercise of force and control over his victims, his victims’ fear when they attempt to resist. It is the act of rape, not sex, that is his motivation in offending.”

The court was told the victim of the Cullercoats attack had gone to bed, leaving her partner asleep on the sofa in the living room.

At 6am she had become aware of someone behind her in bed and presuming it to be her partner, drifted back to sleep, but became alarmed when she could feel cold outdoor clothing against her skin.

She was raped after being pushed over on to her front, her face being forced into the pillow so she could hardly breathe. She managed to turn back over and bite her attacker on the hand causing him to recoil and giving her the chance to scream for her boyfriend. The man then ran downstairs and was grabbed in he hallway by the victim’s partner but managed to wriggle away.

Investigations revealed the attacker had armed himself with a two kilo weight which had been in the garden but which was recovered inside the house.

Curran – whose mother lived in Cullercoats – was arrested eight months later after he is alleged to have raped the woman in Whitley Bay. The trial continues today.

OMAHA, Neb. — A man who tried to arrange for the slayings of his former girlfriend and her two children has been sentenced to 50 years in prison, said Pottawattamie County Attorney Matt Wilbur.

Terry Leggio was sentenced Monday in Council Bluffs. Leggio is already serving 50 years for a sexual assault conviction. Police said he unknowingly made a deal with an undercover investigator to kill the children – he was convicted of molesting, their mother and an investigator.

Pottawattamie County Attorney Matt Wilbur said the two consecutive sentences will prevent Leggio from seeking parole until Leggio is 102.

FORT WORTH — Wesley Wayne Miller, one of Tarrant County’s most notorious sexual predators and killers, is headed back to prison.

Miller, 46, violated terms of his civil commitment order by having a romantic relationship with a female jailer at a Tarrant County facility where he was housed after his release from prison.

For that violation and two others, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison Friday under a plea agreement.

Before the plea was finalized, prosecutors consulted with the sister of Miller’s 1982 murder victim and with another woman he attempted to rape, said prosecutor Alana Minton.

Miller, a former Castleberry High School football star, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the stabbing death of Retha Stratton, an 18-year-old Castleberry cheerleader. He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 20 years in prison on an unrelated charge of burglary with intent to commit rape.

Over two decades, he was repeatedly released on mandatory supervision under a state law in effect when he was sentenced. Each time, he was sent back because he refused to participate in sex-offender counseling or was accused of another crime, including stalking a Wichita Falls woman.

In 2006, Miller became the first convicted murderer to be civilly committed under a 1999 law, which was expanded in 2006 to include killers with sexually motivated conduct.

That meant that Miller, after he was released from prison in 2007, had to live in supervised housing, follow a long list of rules and be supervised by the Council on Sex Offender Treatment.

After initially being sent to another facility, he was housed in Tarrant County’s Cold Springs unit. Last May, he was charged with violating the rules by having a relationship with a 21-year-old jailer. He was then transferred to the county’s downtown facility, where he was charged with two other violations — visiting with his father and brother, who had been taken off his approved-visitors list.

Miller’s attorney, Curtis Fortinberry, contended that the charges should be thrown out because the civil commitment rules did not apply because he was living in a secure facility.

After his ruling, Fortinberry said Miller agreed to plead guilty to all three charges in exchange for concurrent 10 years sentences. If he had been convicted by a jury, he faced 20-year sentences on each of the three charges because of his prior convictions, Fortinberry said.

Because prosecutors were asking that the three sentences be served consecutively, Miller was looking at 60 years in prison if he hadn’t taken the plea, he said.

However, Miller will not be eligible for parole on his 10-year sentence under terms of the civil commitment law, Minton said. That means he will have to serve all 10 years, she said.

Miller will be allowed to appeal the judge’s ruling on the motion. Fortinberry said he hopes an appellate court will rule that the civil commitment law is unconstitutional.

“We’re looking for some appellate court to clarify the law,” he said. “If they declare it unconstitutional, the Legislature will clean it up and make it right. It’s a good law. It serves its purpose, but the way it’s written does not.”

Minton disagrees.

“He’s saying that because Mr. Miller is housed at Cold Springs, he is being confined; therefore the rules don’t apply,” she said. “But the law doesn’t say that. It says he can be housed in any facility the Council of Sex Offender Treatment say he can and he has to follow the civil commitment rules.

“Mr. Miller was aware of what his requirements were under his civil commitment. He knowingly violated those requirements and this is the consequence.”

A 62-year-old man who begged the judge at his trial to have him put him to death for the rape and murder of a young woman has been executed by lethal injection in Alabama, prison officials said Friday.

Jack Trawick was executed late Thursday after having been convicted of the murder of a 21-year-old woman in October 1992.

Local media reported that he had confessed to the murders of three other young women. Having been sentenced several times in the past, his lawyer had asked in vain that Trawick should not be paroled until he had followed a program for sex offenders.

All appeals to halt his execution were dropped, although his lawyers continued to insist that he was suffering from a mental illness.

Trawick was the fifth person to be put to death by lethal injection this year in the state.

A homeless man has been charged in the brutal rape of a woman in Downtown Memphis.

It happened in a downtown office building, Monday, June 8, 2009. According to investigators, a homeless man was let into the building to use a restroom. Police say the man became violent at some point while in the building and bound a woman’s mouth and hands. Investigators say he slammed her head into the toilet and raped her.

Memphis Police Detective Monique Martin says 44 year-old Lewis Young was named as the suspect in the case, during the investigation. Officers, Martin says spotted Young walking along the 600 block of Madison Avenue, around 3:00 a.m., Tuesday and arrested him.

Young has been charged with aggravated rape, especially aggravated robbery and aggravated kidnapping. Police say Young’s rap sheet is about 100 pages long with charges including sexual battery, burglary and robbery.

Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin said, “This is a prime example of what is wrong with our justice system. The legislative body in Nashville has had opportunity after opportunity to fix this problem with tougher sentencing. They have failed to address our concerns and now another victim is scarred.”